Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Creating Glass Fusing Decals - Ceramic Decals and Etching PnP Blue

In preparation for Glass, Ceramic and Copper Etching I'll walk you through what I use to create the decals and etch sheets. Then the preparation of the materials to put them on. So there is going to

GLASS DECALS FOR FUSING:
For Fusing on Glass I purchased some Glass Decals from A.A.E. Glass Art. You can purchase as many as you want. They are simple to use. They work on the premise that you need a laser printer whose toner contains iron oxide. I found that the HP laser printers that use the 12A toner cartridges have one of the higher iron oxide contents. The sheets come with seperation tissue sheets that you can use after printing to stack so you dont scratch your toner off the decal till you use it.

The best artwork is a good black line drawing - you can have some shade but you have to remember that this is going to turn into a sepia drawing. These decals give you clean crisp lines. (some of my finished pieces)

Here is my zentangle drawing - black and white on the decal sheets. 8-1/2 x 11
the top is without the tissue cover sheet. This way I can cut out the pieces I want (will show that when I get to it)

The printed sheet is glossy with the toner on top of the shiny side (you have to figure out on your printer how you feed it in so that it prints on the glossy side) I did a full sheet and will be able to cut out from different areas of the sheet for my glass blanks.

I WILL CREATE BLANKS THIS WEEK AND DO A STEP BY STEP SHOWING THE PREPARATION OF THE GLASS FOR FUSING AND APPLICATION OF THE DECAL AND RE-FIRING.

COPPER ETCHING
The paper I use to create the etching tansfer is called PnP Blue and can be purchased from Radio Shack and other locations that sell products for PCB board etching.
Again a laser printer is best used for the image transfer. This material requires heat - I use a standard Iron.
You print the image on the dull blue side - as the emulsion is on this side and the toner adheres. Again as I proceed I'll walk it through the process of application and etching.

Hard to see but its black on blue - the toner will transfer to the copper (or silver) and create a resist.

Again - produces an nice crisp image for transfer

(some of my etched pieces)

I WILL CREATE BLANKS THIS WEEK AND DO A STEP BY STEP SHOWING THE PREPARATION OF THE COPPER AND APPLICATION OF THE TRANSFER FOR ETCHING.

CERAMIC DECALS
To follow - waiting on materials to create. I'll be purchasing the ceramic colors and will go through the steps of creating my silk screens to screen the images on the specialty ceramic paper. That alone is a really fun to do - a bit intricate but once you make one you will love doing it. I did silkscreens when doing glass painting classes. The cost of having someone make them deters me as they want to create a min of about 72 sheets which is a bit much - although I could sell them

I've started to make my blanks - these blanks will be for the ceramic decals but I think I'll be using them to paint direct on using ceramic paints or glass paints, pebeo ceramic paints etc.. , to show how you can do low temp painting on (using just the oven) or even permanent marker and sealing with krylon clear coat. Many choices to use the blanks - and again I'll do a step by step for each

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Creating ceramic decals and water slide decals have been the toughest task as it requires a through process. These ceramic use rarely due to its complicated process to create and cost a lot. So, companies prefer to have paper printed decals than this one.